Freida was a despot, a demon from Hell incarnate.
She was my aunt, but one we hid from after her cheek
squeezing greetings that left permanent indentation on our faces. After passing her “hrumphing muster,” we would hide until after her swaggering walk in dismissive adieu.
About town Aunt Freida was feared. She appalled grocery owners, squeezin fruit beyond marketability, calling for the manager whatever she thought things improper, and crashing her cart gleefully into slower moving shoppers , giving them painful rear knee joint contusions.
Freida would take two parking places in handicapped slots. If a parking attendant tried to ticket her, she gave them such a tirade they shrunk from going near her car ever again.
Girl scouts despised Freida. She called their cookies hockey pucks. Trick or Treaters hated Freida, with lights off she would’t answer her door even while she was easily seen staring out her window. The Town Council reviled Freida- Every meeting brought yet another ill-founded complaint. Even Freida’s neighbors considered her the most cantankerous argumentative person they had ever known.
For all her encompassing bile, Freida had one love- Gardening. Her yard was a splendor of beauty . Lush flowering plants, exotic trees and manicured shrubs. Freida kowtowed the Garden Club into awarding her best Gardener every single year. Her passion for things horticultural was as unbridled as her vicious personality. Family rarely visited Freida’s splendor, because she relemtlesly lectured to never stray from narrow path nor touch nothing. Visits ended with Frieda serving stale crackers and insipid tea from reused tea bags.
One season, at the big Botannical Garden Show, Freida encountered a booth advertising unique and exotic seeds. It was fronted by an older Chinese woman. The wise old woman knew Freida’s type, and when an intrigued Freida demanded her most precious and scarce item, the woman brought out a carved Cypress box, opening to reveal a single, large, withered-looking seed. Freida demanded, “And just WHAT is this?” The proprietor told her this was a “most unique” tree called a “Gulpa,” and there were precious few known to the entire world. Freida just HAD to have that seed, and forthwith paid the exorbitant price asked. She hurried home and planted her seed center garden, waiting with great expectations.
Throughout the summer the Gulpa tree grew surprisingly fast. Strange, with gnarly trunk and only two branches with few leaves, it looked prehistoric. One could not say it was attractive , but then, Freida only saw its singularity. About August, the tree began to form a very large crowning pod. Was it a bloom? A seed pod? No one knew. People walking by saw the monstrosity and wondered what Freida was growing. The pod enlarged to ridiculous proportions, almost causing the tree to lean toward the ground on one side. Freida could barely wait. This pod smelled as nasty as rotting garbage. Freida was insensitive to comments that her “baby” stunk up the neighborhood, but the neighborhood felt that the smell was no worse than having Freida harangue them, and rarely said anything.
Late in the month the pod appeared as though it about to open. Freida was ecstatic. She invited everyone to a rare garden party to witness her Gulpa open its mysterious pod. The curious came. Hell, the whole town came, vexing Freida almost beyond tolerance as they trampled her Begonias and Delphiniums
Then, the tree pod leaned downward. The throng Ooohed and ahed. The opening pod almost pulled the tree over as it neared the ground. Freida was beside hereself, sidling up to the straining pod, to assure her prominence in all pictures. She placed her hand on the Gulpa pod. With a sound and smell that all could only characterize as a humungous fart, the pod opened.
It engulfed Freida, and in one loud glorious and obnoxious “GULP,” swallowed her whole. Just like that. Devoured the old bitch. Silence ensued as the crowd couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry or applaud. The fire Department was called, and not even the “Jaws of Life” could pry open that pod, Freida was sealed as though in a tomb. The State Agriculture Department could find no evidence that any Gulpa Tree existed anywhere, ever .
A week after the incident, with failed efforts to chainsaw down the resistant tree, its color paled and it began to wilt. After a monthof pungent rotting smells permeating the town, finally, the tree fell and began to decompose into the lawn.
Today, Freida lies in an unmarked grave and the entire town is mute about the incident concerning the Gulpa Tree .
- Jerry Wendt 2019
The Gulpa Tree ( From the Chinese Tūnyàn ) is a composite of The Venus Fly Trap, The Century Plant, The prehistoric tree Williamsonia, and “Audrey,” beloved lead in the movie “The Little Shop of Horrors.” While entirely a fictional creation, the current state of genetic engineering makes it an entirely reasonable, feasible, and fascinating possibility. If you attend any future botanical events, you would do well to look at specimen labels from a distance.
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